Giacobini-Zinner Comet

Giacobini-Zinner Comet

a telescopic comet with a period of 6.4 years. The Giacobini-Zinner comet is linked to the Draconid meteor shower. Near-the perihelion, the orbit of the comet almost touches the orbit of the earth; sometimes it passes through the point of maximum proximity of the orbits almost simultaneously with the earth. When this occurs, extraordinarily abundant Draconid meteor showers are observed. This happened, for example, in 1899, 1933, and 1946, when the number of meteors in one hour exceeded several thousands. The Giacobini-Zinner comet was discovered by M. Giacobini (Italy) on Dec. 20, 1900, and was again observed by E. Zinner (Germany) on Oct. 23, 1913.

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